In recent years, the read heads of magnetoresistive devices and recording bits on magnetic recording media have become progressively smaller, and as a result, the recording density of stored data has increased. Smaller recording bits generate smaller magnetic flux and smaller output signals, which increase the sensitivity requirements of the read head. A scissor type sensor, which has two free ferromagnetic layers being coupled in anti-parallel directions relative to each other, has been proposed to further improve the sensitivity of the read head. One difficulty encountered is that, while read heads with scissor type sensors exhibit strong magnetic coupling between the shields and the free ferromagnetic layers for improved sensitivity, this strong magnetic coupling allows the scissors sensors to detect extraneous recording bits that were not the intended target recording bits, leading to a decreased resolution and increased magnetic read gap relative to the physical read gap. These complications have limited the practical application of scissor type sensors in conventional magnetoresistive devices.